Second-year coach Sydney Johnson is leading a basketball revival at Princeton

Sydney Johnson, who starred at Princeton a dozen years ago, has the Tigers undefeated in Ivy League play.

He sits alone in the dark gym, refusing to let his mind wander back a decade.

No, he wasn't a folk hero. He was never Superman.

When Sydney Johnson took over Princeton's fallen men's basketball program last season, he knew he wasn't Houdini, either.

Johnson walked into a cauldron of anger and disappointment, embracing the responsibility of mending the fractured program. He cherished the challenge. He wanted to pick up the pieces. Two years after Princeton sank to unfathomable depths, Johnson has his alma mater sitting in a familiar perch atop the Ivy League. Princeton, the conference's only undefeated team, turned back the clock last weekend, snapping reigning Ivy champion Cornell's 19-game conference winning streak. The Tigers (9-8, 4-0) will face Yale Friday night on the road (7, YES Network) as they continue their march back to relevance.

"We fell off," freshman Douglas Davis said. "But we got to get back to where we were. We couldn't just settle for losing. Coach J is not going to let us sink any lower."

Princeton has won seven in a row, but the restoration is far from complete.

"I don't even want to think about that," Johnson said in a whisper. "I can get caught up and emotional about it. It's precious to me to be playing well. I hope and pray that the results will follow."

UNHAPPY RETURN

You can hear the hurt in Joe Scott's voice from nearly 2,000 miles away. Five years after coming home to Princeton -- and two years after everything went wrong -- Scott admits he still keeps tabs on the program that splintered on his watch.

Scott, who played for legendary Princeton coach Pete Carril and was an assistant at the school for eight seasons, presided over the worst era in the program's history.

"I was a bad coach," Scott said from his home in Denver. "If you want to blame the downfall (on me), then go ahead and do that. That's fine. That's what happens in sports. I did a bad job coaching there for three years. It doesn't really matter what I believe."

Scott, a native of Pelican Island, was 38-45 -- including 18-24 in the Ivy League -- during his three-year tenure. He inherited an Ivy League championship team from John Thompson III, who left for Georgetown, that featured four returning starters in 2004-05. Scott's demanding, militaristic style created friction with players and the team finished with a losing Ivy record for the first time in school history.

"Wrong place, wrong time, wrong person," said Scott, who turned Air Force into a winner before returning to his alma mater. "That's how it goes in life."

The Tigers tied the fewest points by a Division 1 team in the 3-point era in a 41-21 loss to Monmouth in 2005 (a record that has since been broken.) Two weeks later, they lost to Division 3 Carnegie Mellon.

Princeton finished last in the Ivy League for the first time in program history in 2006-07.

"There wasn't any doubt in the minds of anybody anywhere far and wide who didn't think when we hired Joe, it was a coup for us," athletic director Gary Walters said. "'We all felt that we had hit a grand slam. But sometimes, there's no such thing as a sure thing. It really ended up being a sad situation. Sad for Joe. Sad for everybody."

Scott's strict interpretation of the "Princeton Offense," a motion-based philosophy built on cutting and screening, stifled his teams. Players looked robotic, bent more on running through the Princeton playbook than looking to score.

After an embarrassing road loss to rival Penn in 2007, Scott laid out his vision for the future:

"We're building a program where our guys know why and how," he said at the time. "Why we play the way we play. How we play that way. And we make ourselves play that way every single game. That's what we're building. There's no time frame for when those things are going to occur. It's not about the end result."

Five weeks later, Scott was gone, slipping out the backdoor to take over at the University of Denver and leaving the Ivy League's most storied men's basketball program in shambles.

Princeton had plummeted from powerhouse to punchline. Walters now faced the most important hire of his career.

CHANGING OF THE GUARD

Georgetown was in the middle of a Final Four run when Scott's departure jolted Johnson.

Johnson, a young assistant on Thompson's staff, routinely checked the box scores. Even when he played overseas for seven years, Princeton always mattered.

"I was worried about the program, to be honest," Johnson said.

After the season, Walters contacted Johnson, who only had three years' experience as an assistant coach.

The culture on campus was much different than Johnson remembered as a player in the mid-90s when he led Princeton to two of its 25 Ivy League titles.

"People were disappointed and that was palpable," Johnson said. "It was really hard for me though, because to this day I think the world of Joe Scott. He made me a better man and a better player. So, other folks could tell me whatever they wanted, but I was just conflicted. Because I knew something different."

Johnson, 34, realized he would endure growing pains in his first head coaching gig. His first order of business was simple: understand his players.

"Some kids respond very well to being pushed hard," Johnson said. "Some kids don't. So I don't think you should say across the board, 'I'm going to scream and yell at every guy.' Because some guys are going to pull back. ... So, I took time to figure out who I was coaching and went from there."

Johnson -- who went 6-23 last season -- adapted to his players' strengths and struck a balance between control and freedom. He retained the framework of the Princeton offense, but incorporated specific plays to maximize the individual talent of his players.

"All players want some freedom," said junior guard Marcus Schroeder. "Coach Scott wanted the offense to be run more precisely and let the offense get a shot rather than let the players get a shot. Coach Johnson is more improvisational, letting the abilities of the individual players do it."

Johnson's recruiting ability -- Davis is the team's leading scorer -- has also put Princeton on the right path. But ...

"I really want to make this clear to folks," the coach said. "We don't get too high or get too low. It's just steady."

So, Johnson won't make any bold predictions. The championship banners hanging high above in Jadwin Gym speak to his players every day.